


Friend Once More

by LadyBrooke



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:18:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1782100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBrooke/pseuds/LadyBrooke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the last ship is about to sail, Círdan reflects on how he's been one of the wise, but there are greater things to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friend Once More

**Author's Note:**

> Written for "I Survived First Age Beleriand" Silmarillion Appreciation Week, Day 6, over on Tumblr (tag: ISFAB week).

Círdan is old. 

Celeborn is old too, Cirdan thinks as he readies the ship. Thranduil as well, and the rest of their people who are grouped around the mast of the ship.

Maglor might think he’s so old that Círdan will miss him lurking behind a box, hunched over as though to make himself invisible, but he knows everyone who readies to depart on his ships. It has never been Círdan’s place to deny a place to one who wishes to journey, and he has no reason left now to caution anyone against going. Privately, he admits to those who ask that he doesn’t have the heart to refuse Maglor either, not when he seems to becoming more lost with each passing year.

Because they are old, and Círdan hopes there will be some peace for them in this new land, even if he knows that’s likely a lie.

He trusts those who already departed these lands once, but the ones who stayed? It remains to be seen if they understand that old in Middle-earth was synonymous with weary, and often bitter as well. Círdan isn’t old because he has a beard, he’s old because he’s seen too many homes destroyed and too many die.

At least they’ll believe him old. Celeborn and Thranduil look much the same as when they fled Doriath, save for a few more scars. And if he thinks privately that Celeborn’s hair has dulled over the years and Thranduil moves slower – even though such things are said to be impossible for elves – and Maglor seems to have a harder time seeing his sheets of music, though that could be another long ago effect of the Silmaril with its blinding light, there is no one to tell him that it’s not true.

Círdan was once accounted one of the wise, when there were enough elves that such titles meant something.

Now he’s shipwright still, but it’s being called a friend once more that he cares about.

And he’ll set himself against Olwë’s and Ingwë’s courts, and Finarfin’s feelings as a father, and even the Valar themselves, if he has to for them.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like being the wise would be awesome, but the decisions to get there would often have a way of setting you apart from whatever friends and kin there were left, because it would sometimes mean going against what would be good for your people in favor of what was good for everyone...


End file.
